To Defend Ourselves Against a Mermaid

Tayna Skarynkina Transl. by Natalie Truman

Tanya Skarynkina was born in 1969 in the Belasurian town of Smarhon'. She worked as a mail carrier, illustrator of children's books, journalist, and columnist. Tanya Skarynkina is the author of two books of poetry in Russian: A Book for Reading Indoors and Outdoors (Minsk, 2013) and Portugese Triplets (New York: Ailuros Publishing, 2014). In 2014, Portugese Triplets was longlisted for a Russian Gulliver Award. Her book of essays in Belarusian, A Large Czeslaw Milosz with a Dash of Elvis Presley (Vilnius, 2016), was shortlisted for the Jerzy Giedroyc Literary Award in 2016. Her poetry has been translated into Hebrew, Belarusian, Georgian, Polish, Czech, Italian, and English. Tanya is a member of the Belarusian PEN Centre and Belarusian Writers' Union.

Natalie Truhan came to the United States from Belarus in 2007. She received an MFA in Fiction and Literary Translation from Antioch University Los Angeles, where she served as Translation Editor of Lunch Ticket. She lives in Los Angeles where she writes short fiction, translates poetry between English and Russian, and teaches at Antioch's inspiration2publication online writing program.